


Sunrise to Sunrise

by sunflowerwonder



Category: Homestuck
Genre: But comes back for 24 hours, Death, Divorce, F/M, Infidelity, Jake is dead - Freeform, M/M, Sexual Content, this is a happy bittersweet fic I promise, to have a good day with Dirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 07:35:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8241476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerwonder/pseuds/sunflowerwonder
Summary: At some point in a drifting haze of the morning you realize two things:
1. Your husband is your ex-husband. He should not be in bed with you.
2. Your ex-husband is your dead ex-husband. He definitely should not be in bed with you.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [От рассвета до заката](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8462821) by [AJVobla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJVobla/pseuds/AJVobla)



> Originally a request for "divorce AU" on my blog!
> 
> Why can't any of my AUs be simple.

⭐️

**9:00AM**

He’s a familiar press of warm skin against Saturday morning sheets and you mumble that you love him into the expanse of his jaw, his neck, his collarbone, everywhere you’ve known and loved and kissed and can currently reach with your mouth and words.

“I love you,” you say. He holds you closer.

**10:00AM**

At some point in a drifting haze of the morning you realize two things:

1\. Your husband is your ex-husband. He should not be in bed with you.  
2\. Your ex-husband is your dead ex-husband. He definitely should not be in bed with you.

You stumble from the bed with a heaved yell and end up with your ass on the floor and your legs tangled in the dinosaur printed duvet he ordered from a children’s catalogue years ago. (You were too sentimental to discard it in his absence.)

“Good morning,” he says, peeking over the edge of the bed. Your breath rockets through your chest but you simply stare, wide eyed, at your (dead, dead, definitely dead) (ex) husband.

“Jake,” you gasp. You’d know those green (so green, so alive) eyes anywhere.

“Cheers, love,” he smiles. “You look like you could use some tea.”

**11:00AM**

You settle for coffee. Black. He titters at this decision. Tells you to go easy on the caffeine. Tells you the mug is hot when he hands it to you. Tells you he loves you. You stare at him silently as he prances around you kitchen with striking familiarity.

He makes eggs.

“You’ve, uh, got questions, surely,” he says. He’s got too many spoonfuls of scrambled eggs shoved in his left cheek and he looks rediculous when he attempts to speak while chewing. Something aches in your heart as you realize how much you missed him.

“You’re dead,” you say, softly. Then, “I’m hallucinating.”

“I’ve got until midnight until that’s true again,” he replies, easily. “Let’s rev ‘er up and do something fun, shall we?”

You stare at him. “We’re divorced.”

He bites his lip. “Let’s not worry about that, see? I’m back for today. Can’t we just pretend things are the way they were?” He smiles. “Just for today. I’m back for today.”

**NOON**

He drags you back to bed and somewhere between his lips around your dick and dragging your hands along his face you become distinctly aware that this is not a dream. That this is real. That Jake is alive and flushed and warm beneath you and when you kiss him his lips taste like the chilled seabreeze of the morning runs he was so fucking fond of and you melt into him and wake up, fully, all at once.

“Holy shit,” you say, dick inside him. “You’re alive.”

“Why love,” he says, laughs, moans. “I thought you’d never notice.”

**1:00PM**

You don’t sleep but you allow yourself to fall boneless against him. It feels so good. So good. You’ve come out of shock and he’s warm and alive and you can only orgasm once more before you tell him no more, please, you just want to hold him. You missed him.

The sun is high in the sky and it streaks through the sliding porch doors making up one wall of the bedroom. It’s a stark white room filled with (Jake’s) plants you’d obsessively refused to let die. The doors lead out to a sandy porch. The sandy porch leads to the beach. The beach leads you to memories of the ocean view he so desperately wanted to own a tiny, seaside cottage near.

“Why are you back?” you ask, softly, nestled in the crook of his arm. You’ve never felt more comfortable in your life.

“I did a cruel one on you,” he says. “I asked to make up for it.”

**2:00PM**

He draws you a bath in the tub and you never take baths, only ever shower, but his strong hands guide you to the blissfully hot water and you let out a pitiful groan when you slip into it. He sits on the edge and dips his feet in. Smiles at you.

“I’m sorry I divorced you,” you say between hills of lavender-scented bubbles. “That was a dick move.”

“You didn’t know I was going to fall off a cliff in bloody Peru the month after things were finalized,” he replies. “If we’re counting dick moves, I think I win the damned jackpot.”

**3:00PM**

You walk across the beach barefoot, careful of sharp shells. He is not so careful, never was, even before he was some sort of physical, heavensent apparition.

The afternoon sun glares off the powdered sand and makes the ocean look like fractured glass. It’s ethereal, and you tell him so, but he just hands you a slice of bread to toss to the clusters of seagulls dotting the beach.

You kiss him in the sand, like you used to for hours on end when you first moved to the pretty home. Before it became a source of anxious house payments, loud arguments, closed off bedrooms, and the empty, enraging solitude of awakening to find Jake’s suitcase gone off to an undisclosed foreign country. (To escape you, you’d mumbled to yourself around the rim of a wine glass at two in the morning, on the three year anniversary of his death.)

“I was such a shitty husband,” you mutter into his lips. He grips your hair harder.

“Shh,” he hushes you. “Please, Strider. Today is for you, for us.”

**4:00PM**

“Let’s go to dinner,” you say.

You’re curled up in bed again. He’s put on the mixtape you gave him on your fifth month dating, a cringey affair with selections he underhandedly snuck to the DJ for your wedding.

“Angelos’?” he asks, stroking his fingers through you hair.

“Yeah.”

“That sounds positively aces,” he says. “I’ll call for a reservation.”

**5:00PM**

“Cheers, love,” he says, clinking a glass against your own.

You had worried, darkly, that Jake’s appearance was a symptom of an unannounced psychotic break. A figment of your desperate imagination. Yet he chatters with the waiter happily, bright-eyed and cheerful and happily chowing down into a plate of bowtie pasta.

“You’re alive,” you note.

“Still kicking in?”

“I’m a natural disbeliever,” you say. He toasts again to that.

You return to your own pasta with a sweet, somber smile on your face. You take a warm, stomach-filling bite.

“You’re still wearing your wedding ring,” Jake says.

“For today,” you reply.

“You woke up with it on, Dirk,” Jake says, taking a sip of his drink. “I hate to paint myself a conspirator, but I know you.”

You look up at him. Frown. “I’m a fairly handsome catch, Jake. It keeps the fuckloads of eager guys off my back.”

Jake nods. Laughs. Takes a bite of garlic bread. He clearly doesn’t buy it but fails to comment. “Sorry I had to leave you so suddenly, love,” he says.

“Admittedly, Jake, I was leaving you anyway.”

Jake nods. Motions for the waiter. Smiles at you. “Let’s make up for our mutual transgressions, hm?”

**6:00PM**

Jake rests quietly in the passenger seat as you drive him home. The road is darkening with each minute, the first trails of sunset cutting across the horizon. You’re quiet but it’s sweet. A mutual enjoyment of company.

Somewhere along the journey Jake realizes you’re not on the path back to the beach house.

“That was our left, Dirk,” he says, sitting up.

You stay quiet.

“Don’t tell me you’ve lost your edge, dear,” Jake comments. “I think we can flip a 'u’ at the next light—”

“We’re going to Jane’s,” you state.

He tenses.

“Dirk—”

“She deserves to see you.”

“No, no—”

“She deserves it, Jake.”

“This is supposed to be your day,” Jake says. He’s visibly upset. “This is supposed to be like it was before, before Jane and—”

“She loved you, Jake.”

“I know,” Jake murmurs, settling back against the passenger seat. “By the stars do I know.”

**7:00PM**

Jane Crocker looks tired but put together when she opens the door of her pristine little suburban home. She’s yet to change out of her business skirt and blouse but has placed comfortable rabbit slippers around her feet.

“Surprise,” you say, simply. Jake gives a nervous wave beside you.

There’s a brief shriek of surprise and you barely manage to grab ahold of her shoulder before she tumbles backwards. Hey eyes are an impossible width, further magnified by her spectacles. She rights herself only to clutch at her chest.

A fairly normal reaction, you suppose. You reflect briefly on your own alarmingly brief surprise before simply making out with your dead ex-husband and inviting him to breakfast.

“Uncle Dirk!” the familiar voice of your not-quite-daughter exclaims, throwing the front door the rest of the way open and springboarding off the entryway into your arms. You lift her easily, she’s only six, and draw her against your chest.

“Hey there, jungle princess,” you say in greeting.

Her brother stands in the hallway, behind his mother, eyes pressed to Jake.

“This is Jade,” you say. “And that’s John over there. Jane got cutesy with the J-names.”

“It wasn’t,” Jane starts, catching her breath. “It wasn’t… Cutesy.”

“Jade,” Jake says, clearly overwhelmed. He reaches an oversized hand up to shake hers. “Nice to meet you, princess.”

“Jungle princess,” she corrects.

“Oh, of course,” Jake smiles. “Right you are, jungle princess.”

Jane still has a face plastered with shock. You set Jade down and motion for her tiny frame to move down the hallway. You nod your head at John, too.

“Let’s go, troops,” you say. “Your mom and Mr. English have some very serious catching up to do and we don’t want to get underfoot.”

**8:00PM**

“You raised them,” Jake says.

“Nope. Jane gets full credit for that. I’m a guest star at best.”

“You raised them, Dirk.”

“I didn’t, really.”

“They weren’t yours to raise,” Jake says.

The car ride is silent. The street is pitch dark, now, only accented by the occasional rush of a streetlight.

“They were yours, Jake,” you say, quietly. “I’m not that petty.”

**9:00PM**

Jake is a little shellshocked but you warm him back to the present with promise of a movie. You strip each other of your dinner clothes and curl on the couch in boxers and superhero themed fuzzy blankets. You kiss him again. (Your head feels like you never really stopped.) His mouth tastes lightly of waxy lipstick but your heart is so happy to have him in the moment you do not care.

He chooses Star Wars because it’s the only thing you’ve ever agreed on in terms of unbridled enthusiasm.

Five minutes in he starts to stroke your hair again.

**10:00PM**

“It’s going to end soon, isn’t it?”

“Don’t think about it, Dirk. I’m here for the moment.”

**11:00PM**

He lifts you from the couch, bridal style, and carries you to bed when the film goes to credits. You kiss him lazily and at his prompting the two of you go one more round for the hell of it. He wipes you down reverently and when he crawls back into bed you tangle your arms together and tuck the duvet under both your chins.

“I’m going to miss you,” you say. There’s a press of a sob in your throat.

“At least this time we’ve got closure, right?” he offers. “We don’t have to go out on such a sour note.”

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“Right back at'cha,” he says, pressing happy little kisses up your jaw until you’re forced to crack the tiniest of smiles.

“I’ll miss you,” you repeat.

“I know, Dirk,” Jake says. “But trust me. Your days are just getting started.”

**MIDNIGHT**

⭐️


End file.
